This is what journalism looks like now

For the full top 50 list, along with analysis and spot spotlight coverage, go to projectc.biz/top50creatorjournalists.

The most trusted names in news might not work in newsrooms at all.

We no longer live in a world where a newspaper of record or a nightly newscast serves as the gold standard for truth — or even relevance. Instead, we live in a time where New York Times opinion superstar Ezra Klein and extremely online bro Theo Von vie for the same attention spans. For younger audiences, The Times or NBC Nightly News isn’t even on the radar. 

According to the 2025 Reuters Digital News Report, social media and online video are now outpacing traditional news outlets as the top source of information. That shift reflects a mix of forces: 

• declining trust in institutional media

• devices and algorithms that train us to consume in short bursts rather than deep dives 

• an ever-expanding universe of choices and voices

In the past five years, a group of independent journalists have risen to meet this moment, riding the algorithmic-driven attention economy to increasing relevance, influence and financial success. They’re serving and meeting the needs of news-seeking devoted audiences, even as the traditional journalism industry struggles to stay afloat.

Today, Project C is releasing the first-ever Top 50 Creator-Model Journalists: a list of the most influential journalists working independently across platforms like Substack, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and beyond. If you care about where journalism is going, these are the names to know —and follow.

On this list, you’ll find journalists reporting from nearly every corner of the news landscape — on the ground in Ukraine and Gaza, deep inside the business of college sports, embedded in Los Angeles ahead of the 2028 Olympics, burrowed into the depths of the federal court docket, and tracking grocery prices aisle by aisle in Portland, Oregon.

What unites them isn’t their subject matter, but their approach. Eighty percent of the names on the list left traditional newsrooms to build independent brands – as I write, news broke that The Washington Post’s original TikTok guy, Dave Jorgenson just left to set up his own independent shop. Jorgenson, and many others, have embraced a core reality of modern journalism: the audience determines the reigning medium. Not executives. Not editors. While many legacy leaders wait for audiences to return to formats that no longer serve them, creator-model journalists are meeting people where they are — on TikTok, in inboxes, on YouTube, and on platforms yet to hit the mainstream.

“Journalists are on a mission to inform the public, but that doesn’t mean we get to decide how people should want to be informed,” said Joy Mayer of Trusting News, a non-profit that works with newsrooms, and now independent journalists, to understand and spread best practices around credible information. “As consumption habits change, it doesn’t do us any good to wish traditional formats were still preferred. Our ability to perform a public service depends on us actually reaching significant portions of the public.”

This is what journalism looks like now

The journalists on the Top 50 list understand that there is no such thing as a general interest publication anymore. Today, our inboxes and social feeds are the new general interest publications, shaped by our habits, values and algorithms. The role of the journalist, or trusted messenger in this new world, is as a lamplighter, a guide –  becoming the must-read or -watch source pointing us towards clarity in a time of confusion.

That shift isn’t a departure from journalism’s mission – it’s a return to its roots: meeting people where they are, on their terms, with information that helps them make sense of their world. The journalists on this list aren’t just chasing reach. They’re building relationships and communities. And in doing so, they’re redefining how trust is earned – not through institutional gravitas or performative neutrality, but through connection, consistency, and transparency.

“For too long traditional, mainstream journalists have tried to stay detached from their reporting, but I think that’s part of the reason they lost their audiences and lost trust,” notes Summer Harlow, Associate Director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “Journalists are humans, too, and it’s okay for that to come across in their reporting.”

That human, present-tense approach to trust can feel foreign, or even threatening, to legacy institutions. Creator-model journalists have often been dismissed as outsiders, as distractions, or as another force chipping away at traditional audiences. When Project C released the News Ecosystem Map in January, our aim was to challenge that assumption; to place creators and news influencers in context, not as disruptors, but as part of a continuum.

“Journalism has always had to adapt and question old models, evolving as the world changes, and this is no different,” said Harlow. “It’s not the end of journalism, but a new way of doing it. And if the industry ignores or dismisses creators, it runs the risk of missing an opportunity to expand into new territories, reach new audiences, and restore broken trust.”

Consumer trends and the business of it all

It’s not just audience attention that’s shifted. Money may be drying up for traditional media companies, but it hasn’t disappeared from the economy. It moved. In the past five years, both ad dollars and consumer spending have made a decisive turn toward the creator economy. 

WPP Media predicts that 2025 is the year creator-driven platforms will overtake traditional media companies in ad revenue. It’s a chilling data point for legacy media, but an encouraging sign for creators and the mini-industries spinning up around them. That trend likely helped Substack secure a fresh $100 million in new venture funding amid speculation that the only way they can reach a $1.1B valuation is by flooding the once advertising-averse platform with, yep, ads.

Meanwhile, consumers often labeled as “news avoidant” are actually paying – sometimes quite a lot – for news and information. That’s a positive development, a sign of renewed value being placed on information that feels useful, accurate, compelling and worth supporting. Yet in May, The New York Times framed the amount of money consumers are spending on newsletter subscriptions as a “budget trap” when what they had actually discovered was that curated newsletters for specific audiences are finding those audiences and selling to them. It’s not surprising that a legacy outlet might interpret the trend as a problem, especially when so many traditional news brands have seen their consumer revenue collapse. (The Times itself remains a rare outlier - thriving in a subscription-driven model that most of its peers have struggled to replicate.)

“If you're paying attention to the creator-journalist space, you'll see media operators who are building sustainable media businesses through a combination of revenue strategies, from reader revenue to advertising to events,” said Inbox Collective author and consultant Dan Oshinsky. “These are operators focused on creating impact for their audiences. They really understand how to build great products for their readers, and more traditional media companies could learn from their example.”

This growth in revenue streams has allowed once-solo creators to scale up. People like Matt Brown, who launched Extra Points, a newsletter about the business of college sports back in 2020. Today he has five employees and recently acquired another publication. Matt and others - Your Local Epidemiologist’s Kaitlyn Jetelina, YouTuber Johnny Harris, Platformer’s Casey Newton –  may have started as one-person operations, but they’ve built what are, by any definition, media companies. Not the next Vox or Vice, but something truly new: audience-first, creator-led, and increasingly self-sustaining. Seven journalists on the Top 50 list report they’re making more than $500K a year. 

What happened in 2020?

In 2020, as the world faced down a global pandemic and white-collar workers retreated to laptops in their apartments, something shifted. Journalists left — or were pushed out of — traditional media in record numbers, and many began launching solo ventures. Of the 50 journalists featured in the list, all but seven started their channels in 2020 or after.

At the dawn of the pandemic, In a time when nothing felt certain, mainstream media was doing its best to “follow the science” — but science evolves as new information emerges. That created a destabilizing experience for many news consumers, who craved clarity and finality. We want things to be figured out and to stay figured out. The pandemic shattered that expectation. In contrast, when people turned to the internet — whether it was someone speaking directly into their phone or writing confidently on Substack — the information often felt clear, firm, and unchanging. And it was coming from humans, either in a selfie-style video or written in first-person.  That kind of connection and certainty was incredibly appealing.

Algorithms on platforms like TikTok and YouTube started surfacing creators who felt relevant, unfiltered, and real. Email inboxes became new front pages for niche voices and independent reporting — especially as major media outlets focused largely on two dominant stories: Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. BLM, in particular, exposed deep tensions between newsroom narratives and audience expectations. We started questioning the perspectives we were hearing most often, whether from a nightly news anchor or the cover of the local newspaper. Instead, we sought out multiple voices, many with lived experiences of the very stories they were reporting.

Newsrooms, too, were reeling from round after round of layoffs, made worse by a pandemic that slashed ad budgets overnight. In 2020 alone, newsrooms lost a reported 16,160 jobs.

Talent and solid work was completely disconnected from employability and stability. Even if you brought in major scoops, drove high engagement or won awards, it just didn’t make up for bad business decisions made in executive suites – and often journalists were the first on the chopping block when the ax started swinging

“I got laid off from Vox during the pandemic, and had no shot at landing a more traditional sportswriting job for several months,” said Brown. “I figured Extra Points could serve as a bridge project until sports came back and budgets unfroze. It wasn't until I saw how quickly it grew until I realized that actually, this was my job now.”

In other words, 2020 didn’t create the conditions for the rise of the creator journalist. It accelerated everything that was already brewing.

Journalists I talk to today often cite three reasons for leaving established media to go solo:

• A mismatch between the content they want to create and what editors, publishers, and increasingly aggressive sales teams are asking of them.

• A reluctance from media companies to reward (or profit-share) with journalists who drive significant traffic and loyalty.

• The steady drumbeat of layoffs. Going independent doesn’t feel riskier than staying put.

The result? What once might have been seen as an unimaginable risk — leaving a newsroom, a steady paycheck, 401K and health insurance  to build something solo — is now a viable career path.

“The reason I didn’t do this three years ago or four years ago is that there was a fear of failure,” TikTok guy Jorgenson told The Times’ Ben Mullin this week. “But I’m not as scared of failing anymore.”

Who qualified for the list? Who didn’t?

This list is made up of journalists primarily reaching an English-speaking American audience with mostly original reporting – not necessarily analysis or opinion. That’s why you won’t see content creators who front-end opinion in their work on this list even though many of them did originate in the journalism industry – names like V. Spehar, Carlos Eduardo Espina, Aaron Parnas or Terry Moran aren’t here even though we do believe they’re doing vital work.

You also won’t see a deep bench of local journalists on this inaugural list, though we hope to change that soon with more lists specific to topic or region. One standout did make it: Bryan Vance, whose Stumptown Savings has become a runaway hit in Portland by offering smart, utilitarian news people can actually use. We see his work as a model that could be replicated in communities across the country.

The Top 50 also reflects the inequities of the broader media landscape: 54% identify as men, 86% are white, and just 12% publicly identify as LGBTQIA+. This lack of representation highlights the need for clear pathways, training and support systems for independent creator journalists from all backgrounds.

We didn’t just include the biggest names, but also some exciting new entrants who are pushing the boundaries of the form — like Brian Fung, a former CNN/Atlantic/Washington Post tech reporter now explaining tech policy while streaming video games on Twitch via his BrainFungi Twitch stream.

You’ll see names with deep newsroom roots — Caitlin Dewey, Lisa Remillard — alongside emerging journalists like Marisa Kabas, who broke the federal funding freeze story in January; Bisan Owda, whose frontline reporting from Gaza has earned Murrow, Peabody, and Emmy awards in partnership with AJ+; and Kyla Scanlon, who’s taken her Instagram-native economic insights all the way to The Daily Show.

What they all share:

• They produce ethical, credible work that is original, impactful and innovative: The best creator-model journalism doesn’t chase clicks or repeat what’s already out there. It’s not easily replaced by a wire story or AI-generated slop. It stands out because it adds something new to the conversation, whether through reporting, voice, or perspective.

• They lean into their personal brand: They recognize the attention economy values individuals over institutional brands and, as Study Hall podcast host Daniel Spielberger put it, “you need to have your own following of people who will follow you regardless of where you go.”

• They know how to niche down: They focus on what they know best — whether it’s breaking news others miss, covering a beat no one else touches, or creating a distinctive, in-group vibe like Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg. They don’t chase a general audience. They build a specific one.

• They invest in their audience relationships: Creator-model journalists understand that audience loyalty isn’t just a metric — it’s the foundation of their work. As Howtown’s Joss Fong recently told me, you have to “tend your comment garden.” That kind of care creates a durable connection, and lasting trust. 

• They know how trust is built online: The most effective ones feel like trusted friends. They deliver information with authenticity, an aura of personal credibility, and even a kind of affection for the people they’re talking to. They’re not sheltered by a brand — they ARE the brand. And they don’t take that lightly. 

Methodology

The Top 50 Creator-Model Journalists were selected through a multi-step process combining expert curation, industry nominations and direct input from the creators themselves. More than 125 finalists were evaluated by the Project C team using the following criteria:

• Audience Impact – reach, engagement, and loyalty

• Sustainability – revenue models, subscriber support, long-term viability

• Journalistic Integrity – adherence to best practices, including transparency and ethics

• Innovation & Influence – distinct formats, storytelling, and platform leadership

• Topic Diversity – beats and formats spanning local, national, and global news

Finalists were also asked to share business details (including revenue mix, staffing structure, and ethics policies) to build a more complete picture of today’s independent journalism economy. 

We know we didn’t catch everyone. If there’s a creator-model journalist you think we should have on our radar, we want to hear from you.

The Top 50 Creator Model Journalists list is produced by Liz Kelly Nelson, Justin Bank, Ryan Kellett and Blair Hickman and Kathy Baird, with support from Anna Loy. Design by James Bareham.

This piece was edited by Megan Finnerty.